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00:00The president says there will be no pullback on his immigration crackdown in Minneapolis,
00:04even as his borders are, suggests a potential drawdown in federal agents.
00:09Also, Trump and Senate Democrats strike a deal to avoid another government shutdown,
00:13but will Republicans sign off?
00:15And new questions about the FBI seizure of 2020 election records in the state of Georgia,
00:20including why was a director of national intelligence on the scene
00:24as the 11th hour gets underway on this Thursday night.
00:35Good evening. Once again, I'm Stephanie Ruhl.
00:38Did you hear that open? We've got a lot of questions to answer tonight.
00:41We're 277 days away from the midterms.
00:44It has also been 41 days since the Trump administration was legally required to release all of the Epstein files.
00:53And you know and I know we're still waiting.
00:55Tonight, Donald Trump has also blessed a tentative deal with Senate Democrats
00:59that could head off a partial government shutdown tomorrow at midnight.
01:03The deal would fund the government, but it would only fund the Department of Homeland Security for two short weeks.
01:09Senators have been on the floor tonight trying to hash it out.
01:12Democrats made it abundantly clear that they would not sign off on long-term funding for the agency
01:16that is responsible for carrying out Donald Trump's immigration crackdown.
01:20The deal between Trump and Chuck Schumer would let Democrats continue to negotiate terms
01:25on more money for DHS over the coming days.
01:28Now the question is, will the Senate and the House both pass it?
01:32And if so, how quickly can they get it done?
01:34Earlier today, we saw something we have seen several times during the second Trump term,
01:39a publicly televised cabinet meeting featuring the president's top aides
01:44that were flattering him over and over on camera for all the world to see.
01:48But there were some key things, I want to underline them for you, that we did not see.
01:53We did not see the president take any questions.
01:55We did not see him talk about Minnesota.
01:57And we did not see him ask Homeland Security Secretary,
02:01who often likes to speak publicly, Kristi Noem, to say anything at all.
02:05Tonight at the Kennedy Center premiere for his wife's documentary,
02:08the president was asked if he planned to change what DHS was doing in Minnesota.
02:14And I'll let you hear his words.
02:17Will you be pulling back immigration enforcement agents out of Minnesota?
02:21We want to keep our country safe.
02:22We'll do whatever we can to keep our country safe.
02:24So you're not pulling back?
02:26No, no, not at all.
02:29Earlier today, we heard from Borders are Tom Homan,
02:32who held his own press conference in Minneapolis to talk about the strategy going forward
02:36for Trump's immigration crackdown in that city.
02:38Homan said he thinks there will be a gradual withdrawal of federal forces
02:43as long as local leaders and law enforcement cooperate.
02:48No agency organization is perfect.
02:50President Trump and I, along with others in the administration,
02:53have recognized that certain improvements could and should be made.
02:57That's exactly what I'm doing here.
02:59The withdrawal of law enforcement resources here is dependent upon cooperation.
03:06Like I said, one agent rests on one bad guy.
03:08Bad guy in jail means less agents on the street.
03:10We have some agreements.
03:12We got more to talk about how we're going to implement these agreements.
03:15But as we see that cooperation happen, then the redeployment will happen.
03:23Meanwhile, Senator Susan Collins says the administration is ending its crackdown in her state of Maine.
03:29But leaders in the state remain on edge as they wait to see if that actually happens.
03:34And in the midst of all of this, Republicans' confidence in the president is actually dropping.
03:40That is according to a new survey from Pew.
03:42Just 27 percent of Americans support all or most of Trump's policies and plans.
03:47A year ago, that number was 35.
03:50And the drop was almost completely, wait for it, Republicans.
03:54All right, let's get smarter with the help of our lead-off panel this evening.
03:57Peter Baker is here, chief White House correspondent for The New York Times.
04:01David Drucker is back, senior writer at The Dispatch.
04:04And Moshe Wanunu, first time here on the 11th Hour, founder and editor-in-chief of Mo News.
04:09He's also the host of Its Daily Podcast.
04:11All right, Peter, Peter, Peter, where are we on this government funding situation?
04:17Is this a win for Democrats?
04:18And if it passes, what's the negotiating really going to look like?
04:22It's hardly like Congress on either side of the aisle even makes eye contact with one another.
04:28Yeah, this is a different situation in which even Republicans are feeling nervous and uncomfortable with what they've seen in
04:33Minnesota.
04:34They would like to do something to show that.
04:36Whether they could actually come to a deal with the Democrats in the next two weeks, assuming this deal that
04:40we've talked about goes forward, it's a big question.
04:42The longer you wait, the longer you delay, the less the political pressure is on Republicans to give in concessions.
04:50And the president might get his backup.
04:52You saw him just say tonight that he's not pulling back even while Tom Homan says he is.
04:57If the anger and the outrage over the shootings in Minnesota begin to fade even a little bit, you can
05:04see the two sides of loggerheads two weeks down the road.
05:07And then we're right back where we started from.
05:08But right now, it is an interesting thing that the Democrats have gotten Republicans to go along with, you know,
05:16temporarily, only temporarily funding DHS because there is this larger concern out there in a bipartisan way with what's going
05:22on in Minnesota.
05:23All right, Double D, explain this one to us.
05:25Twice today, the president did not take questions, and he loves taking questions.
05:29That is unusual.
05:31What does that say about where things stand at the White House right now?
05:36Well, look, I think they feel a little bit on the defensive.
05:38I think that's pretty clear.
05:39And if you listen to Tom Homan this morning, while he made clear that the president wasn't abandoning his interior
05:47enforcement mission, he said that they made some mistakes in Minnesota and very carefully said that they were going to
05:53do things differently and run things in a more targeted fashion.
05:58It remains to be seen whether they follow through there.
06:02You can listen to the president say one thing today, another thing tomorrow, and this is just the sort of
06:09administration and he's the sort of president where it's very day to day.
06:12So let's see where things look in a few days and in a week to see if that's where things
06:19ended up.
06:20And that's sort of the head scratcher, Mosh, because I already said the president didn't answer questions.
06:25He didn't even mention Minneapolis.
06:29Kristi Noem did not speak.
06:31We did hear from Homan.
06:34Is what the White House trying to do, just be quiet on this for a few days, hoping the news
06:39will move on?
06:40I can remember in the first Trump administration calling sort of the Jared Kushner universe of the administration.
06:45And when there would be bad, bad news and they'd kind of chuckle and say, like, no worries, the news
06:50will move on.
06:51This news isn't moving on.
06:53Is Trump just trying to wait it out?
06:54Because he likes these policies.
06:56At least not for now.
06:57We have an aircraft carrier or two headed towards the Middle East right now.
07:00Right.
07:00So we've got to watch that situation.
07:01But, I mean, you did see a level of discipline from the president there at that cabinet meeting in a
07:08way we haven't seen before.
07:08And it is interesting because they have to kind of weave the needle here, because when you look at the
07:15Republican polling numbers, what I found both in the Pew poll, but also the Fox News poll, Stephanie, is that
07:20a third of Republicans now say you've gone too far on ice.
07:22But two thirds of Republicans either say, I like what's going on or go harder.
07:28That's what's so tricky for Trump here, Peter.
07:31So what is going to happen, right?
07:33So Tom Homan says, you know, we're going to change what we're doing a little bit.
07:36What is that going to actually look like?
07:38Because what Trump doesn't like are the headlines and doesn't like to hear all of these people speaking out.
07:43But the actual policies, he likes them.
07:46And to Moshe's point, a whole lot of Marita likes them.
07:50Stephen Miller loves them.
07:52Yeah.
07:52And I think we ought to be careful about overstating how much he's really backing down.
07:56You're right that he has changed the tone of the last few days.
07:59He clearly wants to change the subject.
08:01He didn't talk about it.
08:02That's because he understands that it hasn't been a good issue for him.
08:05That doesn't mean he's going to necessarily back down.
08:07He won the election.
08:08And in 2016, both on immigration.
08:11He thinks so, at least.
08:13And therefore, the idea that he's going to suddenly, you know, retreat to some sort of a more passive stance
08:21may be asking a lot of him.
08:22Now, it doesn't we don't know for sure what's happening inside.
08:25You hear different voices around the president making different points.
08:29Some of them were pretty politically minded worrying about the midterms, worrying about how this will affect Republican majorities.
08:35Then, of course, you have the Stephen Miller wing that's saying, no, no, keep going.
08:38This is important.
08:39This is what the country elected you to do.
08:41And so I don't know the policies are necessarily going to change in a radical way over the long term,
08:47maybe a short term, you know, adjustment.
08:51But I would be cautious about assuming we know which way this is going.
08:55I think it's fair to say when it comes to the Epstein files, Republicans in Congress disobeyed Trump.
09:01But in this case, you actually have Republicans, not many, but some openly calling for Kristi Noem to step down.
09:09Is this the most pushback we've seen from Republicans against President Trump in this second term?
09:15Right. So let's look at year one. Right.
09:16We had Liberation Day in the aftermath, which brought down the markets, which I thought in year one, probably the
09:22worst day or week Trump had.
09:24Right. Until that was.
09:25But Republicans weren't that noisy about that.
09:27Right. Besides the Rand Paul and.
09:29Yeah, yeah, yeah.
09:29Right. Tariffs.
09:30You've had a few people who've had upset, you know, but a few votes in the Senate.
09:33No, I mean, this is out there.
09:35Right. Because ultimately, they see the writing on the wall.
09:38They're the ones who have to go back to the constituents.
09:40They're the ones that are trying to keep the Senate in the House.
09:42They have their ear to the ground.
09:44And so ultimately, you saw not just the usual suspects that Tom Kills is the world.
09:48Right. You saw senators from from Utah, from Nebraska, from Kansas all coming out on Monday, also calling for her
09:55head.
09:56And interestingly, she was on Fox News tonight taking tough questions from Sean Hannity.
09:59You had Greg Abbott, right?
10:01When Greg Abbott from Texas is saying we've got to cool our jets, you've got a problema.
10:06David, I want you to talk about what Moshe brought up earlier, sort of this difficult needle to thread Trump
10:12has because he's taken it from all sides.
10:15On one hand, you've got Republicans in the business community.
10:18You've got more centrist Republicans saying you've taken it too far.
10:21Pull it back.
10:22And then you've got the ride or die Stephen Miller magas saying go harder.
10:26What does Trump do with this?
10:29Well, I think the better question.
10:31I mean, look, Trump is going to do what Trump believes is popular and he lives in a big enough
10:38bubble about what he thinks the American people want and what kind of election he thinks he had that I
10:45think that he will continue to push ahead until he receives whatever significant pushback would be to slow his jets.
10:53But I think to pick up on one of the points that that you guys have made, you know, we're
10:58about to head into Republican primary season.
11:00I spent a couple of days in Texas last week and I went to a congressional forum for Republican primary
11:06congressional candidates in San Antonio.
11:09And whenever the issue of immigration was raised, granted, this was before the Alex Freddie killing, but whenever the president's
11:17immigration policies were raised and discussions about what was going on in Minnesota arose, what voters were saying was keep
11:26it up.
11:27It may be unfortunate that sometimes things get out of hand, but this is because Biden mismanaged the border and
11:34this is what Trump is required to do to clean things up.
11:37And we need to stick. And every television ad for every Republican primary candidate running in Texas right now is
11:44all about border security, interior enforcement and supporting Trump.
11:49And so that's where a lot of the Republican primary electorate is.
11:52And that's why I wouldn't expect to see some massive and continuous break with the president with primaries slated to
11:58start in March.
12:00That is fascinating. Peter, can we go back to what you said before?
12:04Like, is Trump really adjusting his policies or is this just talk?
12:08I mean, think about what Tom Homan said today, that we need to tone down the rhetoric.
12:12And some of the most aggressive rhetoric is coming from this administration.
12:17And I'm looking at you, Kristi Noem, and I'm looking at you, Stephen Miller.
12:21Oh, yeah. And they have continued even since the sort of pivot to promote online some pretty, you know, some
12:29pretty tough messaging.
12:30That's not really in keeping with the, you know, the tone shift.
12:35But that's, you know, it's tactical, it seems, at the moment.
12:39It doesn't seem strategic. It doesn't seem like he's going to suddenly back down.
12:42He wants to lower the temperature, just, you know, talk about other things.
12:46But I think you're right. I think that this is, you know, this has not changed his overall approach to
12:54this.
12:54As Dave said, there's a lot of Republican voters who are pushing him.
12:58And I think that, you know, he wants tough pictures, not as tough as some of the pictures, obviously.
13:06But he likes the idea of looking tough on immigrants.
13:09That's part of his appeal as he sees it.
13:12He wants a week ago, he said he wanted a database with the names of all the protesters.
13:17David, I want to go back to that latest poll from Pew.
13:20Republicans who say the president has the mental fitness needed to do the job, 66 percent.
13:25You might think that's a big number, but that's down almost 10 points from one year ago.
13:31Republicans who say he respects the country's Democratic values, 52 percent.
13:35That is down eight points.
13:36Republicans who say he acts ethically in office, 42 percent.
13:41That is down 13 points.
13:43Is the GOP saying anything about this?
13:45Like, tell me, what's the internal conversation in Republican circles over these numbers?
13:51Yeah, I mean, look, it's the same way it's been over the last decade.
13:54A lot of constant anxiety and hesitation to speak out.
13:58A lot of worry and concern, especially because the party doesn't do well when Trump's not on a ballot over
14:03the past 10 years.
14:04But given his relationship with Republican voters has held up really well, just very hesitant to speak out or to
14:16try and course correct, if you will, and separate from the president.
14:21I don't think it's any more complicated than that.
14:23Mo, you asked your followers of Mo News across the political spectrum how they feel about how things are going
14:31in our country right now.
14:32What surprised you?
14:33The number of Republicans that divide among Republicans.
14:37The Republicans who voted for Trump, some of whom said, you know, this is not what I expected.
14:42But also the number of Republicans who said this was going to be messy.
14:46This is going to be dirty.
14:47Keep the faith.
14:49That's my message to him.
14:50It's the media that's standing in front of him.
14:52It's the protesters standing in front of him.
14:53I want you to double down.
14:55And that's what you also heard from Steve Bannon on his show today.
14:57And so that was, you know, really interesting to hear from Republicans.
15:00Yes, because Steve Bannon from the get-go has been let's blow the whole thing up.
15:04Sure.
15:05But it was interesting you brought up Epstein, right, because that was another case last year where the base was
15:10revved up for a very long time for transparency.
15:13And then when they didn't get it, you saw that dividing line.
15:16On immigration, I mean, we know the signs they held up last year's RNC, you know, deported them all.
15:21And so you can't backtrack from this.
15:24If you do, you lose the people that you need to come out this fall and save Congress for you.
15:29But if you don't, you lose the people in the middle that you needed to win.
15:33And I don't want to let this segment go, Peter, unless we just touch on this, because your colleagues have
15:38new reporting out tonight.
15:39Moshe mentioned it in the beginning, citing multiple U.S. officials that Trump is now weighing new military options in
15:46Iran,
15:46including having American forces carry out raids inside the country.
15:50What can you tell us about this?
15:53Yeah, he's been presenting new options to look at how to get the nuclear program.
15:58The nuclear program, he said, of course, was obliterated during the last strike.
16:01Now, maybe he needs to be hit again in order to put pressure on the mullahs to come to the
16:06table.
16:07He's messaging this as a bargaining tool.
16:11You know, you better come make a deal on the nuclear program or face the consequences.
16:15They've talked about how this could be like Venezuela.
16:18One of the options even talks about raids inside Iran.
16:21That would be extraordinarily hazardous, even more so than Venezuela.
16:25Iran is a more formidable militarized country, I think, than Venezuela is.
16:30So it's a real, you know, it's an edgy thing at this point and not popular with the MAGA base,
16:37coming back to the points that Mo and David was making on Epstein, on some of this immigration stuff, and
16:44on Iran.
16:45And those are times when the MAGA base has been at different points, a little bit divided.
16:50They didn't like the idea that he would once again go into endless wars he promised that he would end.
16:55And so it's a risk if that's where he does it politically.
16:58But he does feel like he had some success with the raids, the bombing last year.
17:02And it may be time, in his view, to ratchet the pressure.
17:06And the question will be, if he does, even if it's successful, then what?
17:11Peter, David, thank you.
17:13Moshe, welcome to 11th Hour.
17:14I'd love to have you.
17:15I hope you had a good time.
17:16Great to be here.
17:17Coming up later in the show, how the raid of Georgia's election office is sparking fears of federal interference in
17:24the midterms.
17:25Not again, but first, right after the break, business is down.
17:28People are scared to show up for work.
17:30How the president's ice raids in Minnesota are hurting the local economy.
17:35The 11th Hour just getting underway on a Big News Thursday.
17:37I know I say it all the time, but seriously, there is.
17:48Many small businesses in Minneapolis are struggling in the wake of increased federal immigration enforcement in the city and, of
17:54course, protests for weeks.
17:55Business owners say that ever since Operation Metro Surge began in December, many workers are scared to go to their
18:02jobs and fewer people are out shopping.
18:05MSNOW reporter Nandi Iguwanu spoke to some of those Minneapolis business owners today.
18:10Watch this.
18:12We haven't been open.
18:14It's just been a ton of fear for just us and our employees and, apart from that, our customer base,
18:20the families that we support, that we feed.
18:23People are really scared.
18:24They're scared to leave their homes.
18:26They're scared to take their kids to school.
18:28They're scared to go to work.
18:29And these are some of the most hardworking people I've ever met.
18:34There is income loss, being short-staffed, stretching ourselves as much as we can.
18:41Revenues down 70 percent or some just having to close entirely because they can't find the workers who are, you
18:48know, feeling safe enough to come out.
18:50If ICE will stay in here forever, that means businesses will be closed for good because you can operate in
18:57a fear.
18:57Where's the humanity?
18:59That's my question.
19:01It's been my question for weeks.
19:03MSNOW reporter Nandi Iguwanu joins me from Minnesota tonight.
19:07I'm so, so glad you spoke to these business owners because they're in the middle of it.
19:11How are they staying afloat?
19:15You know, Stephanie, so many business owners I've talked to over the last several months being here say they barely
19:20are.
19:21There's a widespread struggle taking place in the Twin City.
19:24And the reasons we're hearing are what you pointed out.
19:26There is less foot traffic because of a fear from both immigrants and citizens, I want to highlight, to walking
19:32out and running into an encounter with ICE agents.
19:35You know, there's concern among employees, particularly Somali employees, Hispanic employees, that if they try to go to work, they
19:40may find themselves caught up in the crosshairs.
19:42And I think a point that I've heard time and time again, particularly as I talk to experts, is, yes,
19:47this is being felt among immigrant-running businesses.
19:49That's where you're seeing the big, you know, the heaviest concentration of that fear.
19:53But it's also impacting non-immigrant-running businesses.
19:56You know, I spoke to the mayor of St. Paul today.
19:58She told me that her office has been surveying different businesses.
20:01And what they're hearing consistently is that business is down anywhere between 60% to 70%.
20:06And that's in St. Paul.
20:07We meet Minneapolis.
20:09We spoke to the city's tourism board.
20:11They did a survey of 500 businesses here.
20:13And what they told us is they asked them a simple question.
20:15Is this federal activity impacting business?
20:1880% of those they surveyed said yes.
20:20And nearly all of them said the way that that impact is being felt is through reduced sales.
20:25So the community has really tried to come together in recent weeks to show that support, whether it's through community
20:29aid funds, whether it's through gift card drives, to help keep some of these businesses afloat.
20:33But this isn't the first time.
20:35Like, how do they compare what they're going through now to the business disruption they've faced during COVID in 2020
20:41after the George Floyd protests?
20:43I mean, these companies have struggled over the last decade.
20:49That's such a good point.
20:50And, you know, I asked that question, and one owner I spoke to actually laid it out pretty clearly.
20:54He said the economic uncertainty they're facing, it's the same.
20:57It's the same sort of, you know, financial distress that they experienced then.
21:01The biggest difference, though, is they say back then it felt like the federal government was on their side.
21:06With COVID, there was loans and grants being offered to them.
21:09You know, even in the aftermath of George Floyd, while that became a very partisan issue, you saw pressure from
21:14the Trump administration at that time that the state do more to protect local businesses.
21:18So it felt then that the federal government was working with them, whereas now it feels like the federal government
21:23is the number one cause of the financial distress many of these businesses are facing.
21:27So they've been here before, but it just seems like this time the federal government is working against them.
21:33I read that there's also been an impact on health care.
21:36How?
21:38Yeah, Stephanie, that's probably been the number one concern that experts have laid out, where we could see the biggest
21:43sort of economic catastrophic effect of all this is in health care.
21:48It's where most foreign-born workers in this state, the field they go to work in, it's where we see
21:52an oversampling of minorities in jobs like nurses, support staff at these hospitals.
21:58So there's this widespread concern that if immigrants stop coming to this state because of everything that's going on, there
22:02could be a collapse of that industry.
22:04There's already a ton of vacancies within the health care sector.
22:06But I want to play you a conversation I had with a local physician who talked about just the effect
22:11of the presence of ICE agents is having in her hospital and the concerns about the potential long-term economic
22:17ramifications of a sustained ICE presence here.
22:20Take a listen.
22:22The environment in hospitals and clinics right now is really scary.
22:27There's a lot of fear from patients and from providers alike.
22:31We know that a lot of people are scared to come in for their health care right now.
22:36If people aren't coming in, we're not getting reimbursements for that care, we're not actually doing the job we're supposed
22:41to do, ultimately hospitals are going to be in more of a financial crisis than they already are.
22:49And, Stephanie, I'll just point out another fact that people have pointed out is the concern here goes beyond just
22:54hospitals.
22:55Immigrants make up about one-third of health care assistants, of elder care workers.
23:00So there really is a concern here that this entire health care industry could suffer if this ICE activity doesn't
23:06reduce in the next couple of months.
23:08Namdi, thank you so much.
23:10You better go inside and get warm.
23:11When we come back, it's Money Power Politics.
23:13I got a lot to talk about.
23:14The president, of course, ran as a pro-business president.
23:17But these immigration raids, they're not just hurting the economy in Minnesota.
23:21It is happening across the country, all while the dollar is weakening.
23:25And we may be on the eve of getting a new Fed chair pick tomorrow.
23:28Money Power Politics, right on the other side of the break.
23:38So much business news.
23:39I'm studying down to the last second in the commercial break.
23:42It's time for Money Power Politics.
23:44ICE raids are wreaking havoc on local businesses nationwide.
23:47You just heard us talking about it in Minnesota.
23:49But it's happening in Minnesota, Maine.
23:51Take your pick.
23:51Small business owners say ICE is having a chilling effect on their work as they fear for their personal safety
23:58and their company's survival.
23:59Here to discuss this and more, Max Chafkin, Bloomberg Business Week journalist and host of Bloomberg's podcast, Everybody's Business.
24:06And my dear old friend, John Harwood, veteran Washington correspondent and distinguished fellow at Duke University.
24:11He's a columnist for Zateo on Substack.
24:13All right, John, we have said this over and over.
24:17People from around the world love to do business here because the U.S. values freedom and safety.
24:23If those no longer feel like priorities anymore, what happens to our economy?
24:30It's not good.
24:31Same with the rule of law.
24:33You know, people, I think a lot of corporate leaders have taken a short-sighted view of Trump and thinking,
24:38well, the deregulation and the tax cuts will pay off.
24:43Not thinking longer term.
24:44If you have a deep loss of confidence in the United States, in the basic institutions of the United States,
24:51the legal system,
24:51that is going to have a deleterious effect on the economy, just as splintering our economic alliance is going to
24:58do.
24:58So Trump has been playing a very, very dangerous game with the economy.
25:03He inherited a strong economy from Joe Biden.
25:06He's made it worse.
25:07It's not terrible.
25:08You still have a decently low unemployment rate and some good growth, particularly thanks to the AI boom, CapEx boom
25:17that's going on.
25:18But this is not somebody who is laying the foundation for the golden age that he's talking about.
25:25Yeah, all of those positives about the economy are true.
25:28But take the tariffs.
25:29One of the main points of the tariffs was to bring manufacturing jobs back here.
25:33We've been saying it for weeks.
25:34We lost 68,000 manufacturing jobs.
25:37But even if you wanted to build a factory here, right, for fact's sake, aluminum prices are surging faster in
25:46the overseas markets.
25:48So how can manufacturers get ahead of this?
25:51You want to build a factory, it costs you more today than it did two years ago.
25:54Yeah, I mean, these factories depend on imported parts, imported raw materials.
26:00As you said, aluminum.
26:01And it's actually more expensive in the U.S. to buy aluminum.
26:04So it's a huge problem because in the U.S. you're trying to build something with aluminum.
26:09You have a higher raw material cost than a competitor overseas.
26:13And then you layer on top of that retaliatory tariffs.
26:17You know, all the ways that the tariffs have kind of slowed things down, it's not leading to any kind
26:24of immediate result.
26:25There is a possibility that if they stuck with these policies for a very long period of time, maybe you
26:31would have more aluminum production.
26:33And in the long run, maybe it would do some of the things they're talking about.
26:36But Trump has been so erratic, it's very hard for any business to make any kind of plan based on
26:42what he's saying.
26:43How about honest?
26:45John, I have definitely talked to business leaders here and abroad that say Trump is open for business.
26:50You can get a meeting with Howard Lutnick.
26:52You can get a meeting with the president.
26:54There's business to do.
26:55But today, we watched the head of the Small Business Administration touting trillions in foreign investments, Kelly Loeffler, during today's
27:04cabinet meeting.
27:04And I want to share this with you.
27:07The $18 trillion you brought in is creating an economic boom like none we've ever seen before.
27:13We are going to have 7% GDP growth.
27:16GDP now is probably underestimating where it is.
27:20John, if we had $18 trillion of foreign investment flowing in, we'd have 60% GDP growth.
27:30How does any person who's financially literate, any person in the business world, in the investment world, watch this and
27:37say, gosh darn it, Kelly Loeffler is telling the truth?
27:41Well, I know she's not telling the truth.
27:43The only person she's talking to is Donald Trump.
27:46They're all trying to be as obsequious as possible to stay in good standing with Donald Trump.
27:53But look, when you look at Trump overall, chaos of tariffs, chaos with ICE enforcement, ripping up the judicial system,
28:04lying about what he's focusing on.
28:07You know, he said the other day, affordability is supposed to be the topic that people are focused on.
28:13And Trump said, I don't want the prices of homes to go down.
28:15I want the prices of homes to go up so the people who own homes are going to be richer.
28:19I mean, this is not somebody who is taking steps to help the people who put him in office.
28:26He's doing the ICE raids because he thinks that impresses them and keeps them happy.
28:30But he is much more focused on himself and the strange ideas that he has about tariffs.
28:37I mean, this is somebody who is asking the government to pay him $230 million in compensation for the investigations
28:47of his insurrection.
28:48And now he's suing the IRS and the Treasury Department for $10 billion.
28:52He tried to get his own government to pay him.
28:55That's what he's focused on.
28:56OK, in case people didn't hear that, I want to lay that last part out.
29:00We just learned it tonight.
29:01The president and his two eldest sons, Don Jr. and Eric, who run the Trump Organization, are suing the IRS
29:09and the Treasury Department for $10 billion with a B.
29:13Right?
29:13This is straight out of Austin Powers.
29:15$10 billion over alleged leaks of their confidential tax information during his first term.
29:21What do we know about this?
29:22Because this is crazy.
29:24I mean, these leaks were pretty astounding when they came out in 2019.
29:29And I do think that the president and many of these other rich guys whose information was leaked, you can
29:35sort of understand why they're mad.
29:36Because that information is supposed to be private.
29:38Of course, yeah.
29:39That said, $10 billion is a huge amount of money.
29:43And particularly when he's the president of the United States, we've typically expected presidents to be somewhat transparent about their
29:49finances.
29:50It's pretty astounding.
29:51I think, you know, a lawsuit like this, part of it, of course, is about extracting some payment for what
29:58he sees as a wrong.
29:58But part of it is sending a message to other potential leakers.
30:02We should also say that the person who leaked this is in prison now.
30:05He was sentenced to five years in prison.
30:07And somebody has been punished for this.
30:08Yeah, they are paying the price.
30:10Yes.
30:11And by the way, he was prosecuted by the Biden administration.
30:15See?
30:16Well, there you have it.
30:17The Department of Justice actually acting like an independent Department of Justice.
30:21Meanwhile, the Congressional Budget Office, the CBO, is estimating that federal troop deployments to U.S. cities cost $500 million
30:31last year.
30:32And current deployments are going to cost $93 million a month.
30:37John, even if portions of the Republican Party are like, go hard, go fast, we like this, do our taxpayers
30:44realize this is where their money is going and how big these numbers are?
30:52I don't think so.
30:53I don't think people focus on that.
30:55And in reality, if you're talking about $450 million in the context of the federal budget, it's not a lot.
31:01But it's illustrative of the fact that Donald Trump is not doing anything to bring deficits down, which is something
31:08that the economy might benefit from right now.
31:10That might help with inflation and interest rates as well.
31:14He's simply not focused on the problems that he said he was going to focus on and that people who
31:20are concerned about making ends meet want him to focus on.
31:24And, you know, that's why the president is off on all of these personal jags to benefit himself.
31:31It's not what you expect in a president.
31:34And unfortunately, we've got three more years of it.
31:36And quick, before we go, John, we are less than 24 hours from the president likely announcing his pick for
31:44the Fed chair, whether it's Kevin Walsh or Rick Reeder or maybe Kevin Hassett, probably not Kevin Hassett at this
31:51point.
31:52I mean, this is a hard, hard job.
31:54These men have been battling it out in public, in private, with campaigns like you've never seen.
31:59What do you expect?
32:02Well, people seem to expect now that Kevin Walsh is going to get it.
32:05And I think that's something that markets will cheer.
32:08I do wonder what Kevin said to the president when he met with him today, because he's traditionally been a
32:14hard money guy.
32:15And Donald Trump wants interest rates cut.
32:17So he's tried to warm to Trump and sort of campaign a little bit for the job by speaking more
32:23favorably about tariffs and interest rate cuts.
32:26But that's really not where he's rooted in economically.
32:30And so we'll have to see whether or not he's somebody who, as the president said the other day, you
32:34know, they tell me what I want to hear.
32:36And then they get in office and they try to be independent.
32:38Well, people want Kevin Walsh to be independent.
32:40And we'll see if Donald Trump gets what he wants.
32:43Well, we'll soon find out.
32:44Kevin Walsh, you are skilled.
32:46You are qualified.
32:47Be careful what you wish for.
32:49Gentlemen, thank you.
32:49Before we go to break, though, I just want to take a moment to highlight something you may have missed
32:55and you shouldn't.
32:56The administration is growing its list of equity stakes in private companies.
33:01And its latest deal is forcing this show to ask yet again, is this White House for sale?
33:07The administration announced it agreed to funnel $1.6 billion to a mining company, USA Rare Earth, in the form
33:15of direct funding and loans.
33:17The goal is to develop its supply chain for rare earth metals and magnets.
33:21Some people have said to me, this is like the Manhattan Project.
33:23This is the government investing in our future.
33:25Well, the New York Times points out that the company also does a whole lot of business with guess who?
33:31Cantor Fitzgerald, the firm formerly headed by Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick that is now being run by his two eldest
33:39sons.
33:39It is just the latest example raising really big questions about how members of this administration and their families are
33:47personally profiting from projects that, in this case, the secretary is boosting as a federal official.
33:54Now, the Times also points out that they say they did not find any evidence that Lutnick had intervened in
34:00policy discussions with the intention of driving business to his family.
34:04But as he promoted data center construction, business has boomed at the Lutnick companies.
34:10I thought you should know when we come back, the FBI seizes hundreds of boxes of ballots from the 2020
34:17election in Georgia.
34:18But what was the nation's top spy chief doing at the scene?
34:22We're going to get into that next.
34:30Sit down, sit back and take a deep breath for this one.
34:33We are learning more about what is behind the FBI search at a Georgia election center.
34:37The Wall Street Journal reporting that the director of national intelligence, OK, the top spy, Tulsi Gabbard, has spent months
34:43investigating the 2020 election results.
34:46Quote, Gabbard is leading the administration's effort to reexamine the election and look for potential crimes, a priority for the
34:54president.
34:55According to White House officials, she was on the scene during the FBI's raid yesterday.
34:59And now Democratic senators are calling for a briefing demanding to know what is going on.
35:04Here now, Greg Blustein, political reporter for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and MSNOW political contributor
35:10and former U.S. attorney Joyce Vance, who spent 25 years as a federal prosecutor.
35:15Greg, what has been the reaction in Fulton County?
35:18They have been over this so many times at this point.
35:23Yeah, it's like deja vu.
35:24It's a replay of everything, not just the last year, but the last five or six years here in Georgia.
35:30We fought this fight.
35:32Republicans backing up.
35:33Democrats saying the election's over.
35:35Move on.
35:36Georgia is the home of Brad Raffensperger and Brian Kemp, the secretary of state and governor,
35:42who both said Republicans should look beyond 2020 and towards the next election rather than dwelling on the past.
35:47But we're also the home of other Trump allies who continue to look at the past.
35:51And the reaction here has been a mix of exhaustion, shock.
35:55I would say surprise, but also not surprise in a sense, too, because this has been telegraphed for almost a
36:02year now.
36:02You know, so a lot of local officials were expecting this shoe to drop.
36:06They just weren't sure when it would drop.
36:08Joyce, I keep saying it.
36:10The director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, she's the one who's reportedly leading this investigation.
36:17What do you make of her involvement and her physical presence at the search yesterday?
36:23You know, it's unusual to see the DNI involved in domestic law enforcement because Tulsi Gabbard's job is essentially to
36:31coordinate the product that's coming out of the 18 entities that make up the U.S. intelligence community.
36:37And most of their ambit is not domestic.
36:40So I think we'll see a significant conversation about the legality of her involvement in these sort of proceedings.
36:47A United States attorney can get a search warrant and execute it.
36:51And we know that happened here.
36:53The question is why Gabbard was there on top of law enforcement.
36:57Well, let's talk about that, because the federal prosecutor on the warrant is an attorney for the Eastern District of
37:04Missouri, Thomas Albus, a Trump appointee.
37:07Any idea why he's involved, Greg?
37:09Yeah, and there's some speculation over why he's involved and why the local U.S. attorney is not involved.
37:17They're not commenting.
37:18We've seen reports from Bloomberg and other outlets that the U.S. attorney from the Eastern District of Missouri has
37:25been assigned to these cases nationwide.
37:28We also know that's the home of the site, the company that owns Dominion Voting Machines, the company that bought
37:36that system that Georgia uses.
37:38So in Georgia, we're not really exactly sure why another prosecutor is handling that case.
37:43But it's one of the many mysteries that are just piling up around this FBI raid.
37:49Let's dig into that Bloomberg reporting.
37:51It was Bloomberg Law that Greg is referring to.
37:54Two people familiar tell Bloomberg that Bondi previously handed him authority to conduct voter fraud probes anywhere in the country.
38:04And the appointment allows this guy to coordinate civil and criminal cases, including grand jury proceedings.
38:10Is this normal, Joyce?
38:13You know, it's unusual.
38:15One thing about this U.S. attorney in Missouri is that he has been confirmed by the Senate.
38:21I believe that that happened late last year.
38:23And that means that there's no confirmation proceeding ahead of him.
38:27Unlike the U.S. attorney in the Northern District of Georgia, the Atlanta area where Fulton County is,
38:33he right now is in place awaiting confirmation.
38:37And there may have been some decision to keep him, to give him plausible deniability on this one as he
38:43awaits confirmation.
38:45It's not unheard of for the attorney general to designate a U.S. attorney to conduct some sort of difficult
38:51or sensitive investigation.
38:53But this one is unusual for a number of reasons.
38:56For one thing, Steph, it dates back to 2020.
38:59The statute of limitations for most, but not all, federal crimes is five years.
39:04There would have to be a serious hunt for something that would not be covered by the statute in this
39:10situation.
39:11And also simply because these sorts of claims have been evaluated, they've been litigated, they've been re-litigated.
39:18Virtually every federal court to consider one of these cases ruled that there was no fraud in the 2020 election.
39:25So this feels much more like trying to manufacture an investigation, manufacture charges, than it does like a legitimate criminal
39:34case in the offing.
39:36Greg, today you wrote, could the FBI raid in Fulton County set the stage for a takeover of the country's
39:44elections?
39:45Yikes. What's the answer to that?
39:47Yeah. So Fulton County is the most populous county in Georgia.
39:51It's also one of the biggest Democratic strongholds in Georgia.
39:53And the reaction here has been twofold.
39:55One is, OK, Trump has been, you know, replaying the grievances that we've heard from him since the 2020 election.
40:01He might get what he wants in some sense, which is, in his view, evidence that he won that election,
40:07which, of course, he did not.
40:08But the second fear is some of his allies have been pushing for a long time the ability to take
40:15over local counties' elections if there is some question about it, if there's a pending investigation, if basically they meet
40:23some sort of legal threshold.
40:25And local officials are worried that this is the pretext they could give the Republican-controlled state election board that
40:33pretext to start the proceedings to take over Fulton's elections.
40:37And Democrats here and voting rights activists here say essentially that can mean a lot of things going into the
40:42midterm, including an official who can limit early voting days or limit early voting hours or polling sites or make
40:53other changes to voter registration, you know, purges, all sorts of things that a local – that the local county
41:00elections board would not do right now.
41:03So, Joyce, I have about four seconds, but I must ask, on this issue of elections, you have been following
41:08the return of the SAVE Act.
41:10What is it, and why are you worried about voting rights overall?
41:13I mean, Greg made us sufficiently scared right there.
41:17The SAVE Act is an effort to make it more difficult for Americans to register to vote.
41:22It failed in Congress last year.
41:25It's back in the Senate.
41:26We need to all keep an eye on it.
41:28It's really an advanced poll tax.
41:30It would force you to have a passport or something similarly expensive to be able to register to vote.
41:37Joyce, Greg, thank you so much.
41:39We certainly needed your help tonight, and you both delivered.
41:46That does it for us.
41:48I am just studying up.
41:49It certainly seems like Kevin Warsh might be that Fed chair pick, so I better get a long night of
41:53sleep because it is going to be a busy, busy day in the markets tomorrow.
41:57But for now, I am signing off.
41:59From all of us here at MSNOW, thank you for staying up late with me.
42:02I'm grateful for it every single night.
42:05I'll see you at the end of tomorrow.
42:08I'll see you at the end of tomorrow.
42:10I'll see you at the end of tomorrow.
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